In this paper, we provide an assessment of the evolution of markups in Italy in the last twenty years. To this aim, we resort to both macro and micro data and estimation techniques, namely reduced forms accounting measures (price-cost margins) and production function model-based indicators. When...

This study explicitly takes into account that the decision to enter into a cooperative R&D relationship is related to the antecedent decision to carry out R&D. This calls for a methodological approach that, at the same time, allows the joint analysis of the determinants of the two decisions and...

This study was prepared by Annika B. Bergbauer while she was working at the Ifo Center for the Economics of Education. It was completed in March 2019 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich in July 2019. It consists of four self-contained...

We conduct a regional analysis of the relationship between market concentration and price dynamics in the grocery retail sector, focusing on a sample of five categories of goods belonging to the 12 COICOP aggregation and on a panel of countries that includes Germany, Spain, Finland, Italy,...

We develop and estimate a model of child care markets that endogenizes both demand and supply. On the demand side, families with a child make consumption, labor supply, and child-care decisions within a static, unitary household model. On the supply side, child care providers make entry, price,...

The compensation of executive board members in Germany has become a highly controversial topic since Vodafone's hostile takeover of Mannesmann in 2000 and it is again in the spotlight since the outbreak of the financial crisis of 2009. Based on unique panel data evidence of the 500 largest firms...

Can directed technical change be used to combat climate change? We construct new firm-level panel data on auto industry innovation distinguishing between "dirty" (internal combustion engine) and "clean" (e.g. electric and hybrid) patents across 80 countries over several decades. We show that...

In an influential paper Mankiw, Romer, and Weil (1992) argue that the evidence on the international disparity in levels of per capita income and rates of growth is consistent with a standard Solow model, once it has been augmented to include human capital as an accumulable factor. In a study on...

This study was prepared by Nadine Fabritz while she was working at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in the Department for Human Capital and Innovation. It was completed in June 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich in October...

While Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have been exposed to frequent external shocks in the past, the Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is like no other, representing the largest economic shock experienced globally in decades. The objective of this paper is to...